How a Tweet is Giving La Casa Bakery New Life

A daughter takes to social media to help her dad.

Houston takes care of its own. At the core, that's what #HoustonStrong is all about; when times are tough, we know we can count on our neighbors to help us get by. It's hard to consider any year, even 2017, all bad when in the toughest times Houston rallied and showed the world what we're really made of. But it doesn't take a major disaster for folks to come together to lend a hand to a Houstonian in need. Sometimes all it takes is a tweet.

For the past two years, a man named Trinidad has been running La Casa Bakery and Café over at 1002 Hogan Street. As it has been for so many business owners in Houston this year, times have not been easy for Trinidad, and his daughter Jacqueline wanted to help. The high school senior took to Twitter to see if she could harness the power of social media to help her dad.

It started with a simple video on a Wednesday afternoon with the message:

HEY YALL MY DAD HAS A LITTLE PANADERIA/ RESTAURANT. HE MAKES ALL OF THE PAN DULCE HIMSELF. HE BEEN THINKING ABOUT CLOSING BUT I CANT LET THAT HAPPEN, SPRED THE WORD 1 RT COULD BRING IN A POTENTIAL CUSTOMER! LA CASA BAKERY AND CAFE 1002 HOGAN STREET 77009!! 😭😭 pic.twitter.com/cc2fEDwuyB

You've probably seen similar messages online before, ones that believe in the power of the right retweet. Just how far could the message go for a teen with just over 1,600 followers?

From that first message came an outpouring of messages from Houston and beyond. The original post has 54,000 retweets and counting, Trinidad's spirits have been renewed. A follow-up tweet showed him heading to the restaurant supply stop so that he can keep things moving.

When we caught up with Jacqueline – via Twitter, of course – she told us that her dad was busy baking bread and that business was increasing steadily. She admits that she was taken by surprise by how her tweet took off.

"I really had no idea! I was so shook at the outcome," she said.

And just like that, La Casa Bakery and Café has its own Twitter account and its Yelp page is starting to get some love. As for Jacqueline, she's hoping to major in business marketing.